Thursday, June 24, 2010

Good friend and fellow genea-blogger, footnoteMaven, made Twitter and Facebook postings this morning about you know you’re old when…

That got me to thinking about last week, when my 6-year-old grandson Tannon cheerfully confided in me that “We came to help you in the garden today, Gramma, because you are old!”

Now I really do owe my REAL Gramma Myrtle a major apology.

THE BACK STORY

Years ago, when this Ol’ Myrt was about 5 or 6 years old, I had stayed the night with my Gramma Myrtle at her home on 2nd street in Puyallup, Washington. She woke me up one morning to say we were going to Uncle Bud & Aunt Barbara’s place at Redondo for the day.

I was very excited because this meant getting together with lots of my cousins on Great-Aunt Grace & Uncle Harley’s side of the family. Such summer outings brought the fun of our fathers making geoduck chowder and the bravery of their waterskiing on Puget Sound.

However, this was late fall, and the ubiquitous Pacific Northwest rains were doing more than threatening to shut us in for the day. Top that off by the fact that our dads were at work.

When Gramma Myrtle said “No, it will just be us, and Grace and Harley”, I defiantly replied “But I don’t want to be with all those old people.”

Now, DearREADERS, I am one of those “old people.”

(Though I do keep wondering where all the white hair is coming from that ends up on my hairbrush each day. I still think of myself as a brunette.)

But in fact, I couldn’t be happier, for it falls to me to tell the old family stories and keep tradition alive.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Looks like the trend to use DNA as evidence is now an accepted enrollment ordinance, following a favorable 12-0 vote earlier this month by the Tribal Council of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, according to a Smokey Mountain News (North Carolina) article by Giles Morris.

Congrats to Ed Laput who has voluntarily digitized gravestones from 100 cemeteries!

See Christine Spencer’s write-up on this in the Middletown (Connecticut) Press who writes “… he wants to make sure that some of these old stones will have a record and a photo before they are either stolen, destroyed or deteriorate from old age and that people in the future will be able to see and have at least a copy of that nonexistent stone.”